The world’s greatest deliberative body at work

The Washington Times story on the procedural votes necessary to bring the Republican prescription drug bill to a vote would be funny if you didn’t care that they presage the adoption of seriously destructive, retrograde legislation. The story is “Senate rejects Medicare tactics.”
Here’s a highlight: “Republicans managed to persuade Sen. Lincoln Chafee, a liberal from Rhode Island who often bucks party leaders, to vote with them, after he had crossed party lines to vote with Democrats earlier yesterday. He said he supported the Republicans only after leaders assured him that a provision in the bill, requiring Medicare to compete directly against private health plans in a six-year pilot project in six cities starting in 2010, would not be applied in his state.”